


Rage, Gentle

by missmungoe



Category: One Piece
Genre: F/M, Family, Friendship, Pregnancy, Protectiveness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-23
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2020-10-26 05:49:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20737235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missmungoe/pseuds/missmungoe
Summary: “Don’t worry, Ma-chan,” he told her, and Makino didn’t know if it was a promise or just a statement of fact when he said, with so much confidence she couldn’t help but believe him—“I’mreallyhard to kill.”





	Rage, Gentle

**Author's Note:**

> In Sea Songs, Sabo and Koala stop by to visit Makino after the time-skip, but in light of recent events in the manga, I felt like exploring a different take on their reunion.
> 
> I also wanted to give my girl a bit more credit, as her quiet strength and stubbornness is such a big part of how I imagine her in my fics. So here's my take on what happened after that panel in chapter 956.
> 
> Shameless references to Shanties, as usual. Those who know me know what to expect by now.

The dead don’t come back once they leave, but then one day he was there, sitting at her bar.

Shanks had been gone two months already, and for a while it had just been her again, cultivating her quiet life as usual; the peace that was allowed to grow and thrive, and in no small part because of her. That hadn’t changed, even as other things had. The outward differences to how her life had been before were small, but significant: the wedding band around her finger, and the baby in her belly. Seedlings from an old promise tended over ten long years, and like her peace, this was hers, too: this happiness she’d made.

But happiness wasn’t the absence of loneliness, and there were days where the quiet was too quiet, the peace_ too_ peaceful; days where she missed her husband so much she could barely get out of bed, her bar empty without her crew, and the loud, wonderful boys who’d once kept her company while she waited, and the silence from getting comfortable. There was only one left now, where there’d once been three. Or so she’d thought.

She’d sensed them coming in, the slight ripple of disturbance within her, but hadn’t thought much about it, nothing alarming in either of their presences, or the muted sounds of their voices; a deeper timbre warmed with laughter, and a higher lilt rising above it, pitched with what sounded like fond exasperation.

Grabbing the crate she’d gone in to get—from her newest shipment of liquor, and she wasn’t technically supposed to be lifting heavy things, but there was no one around to remind her—supported against the curve of her belly, Makino exited the storeroom to greet her new customers, only to find them already seated at her counter. There were two, as she’d thought, and both of them young. One was a pretty girl, in a pink blouse and a page-boy hat, her arms crossed on the counter. And the other—

The crate dropped from her hands, but before it could shatter on the floor, he’d caught it, having moved so fast she’d barely registered him getting out of his seat. But in the blink of an eye he was suddenly in front of her, a sheepish grin flashed from under a tumble of blond curls where he held the crate, as though it weighed nothing.

He straightened to his full height, and her eyes widened when she had to crane her neck to look at him, her mouth dropping open softly, even as nothing came out.

“Hey, Ma-chan,” Sabo said, even though the dead can’t speak, and he was dead but he was also _speaking_.

“Are you open?”

When she didn’t say anything, he glanced behind him, at the girl still seated at the counter, who shook her head at him. “I told you. You should have called ahead and warned her.” She made a sweeping gesture to Makino where she stood, her arms slack at her sides. “And look, she’s pregnant! That kind of shock can’t be good for the baby—Sabo-kun, are you listening?”

Sabo’s head had whipped back around, his eyes bulging, as though he’d only just now noticed her belly. “You’re—!”

Makino was still staring at him, speechless. The confident grin he’d been wearing had been wiped off, replaced by genuine surprise where he gawked at her belly.

“So much for a suave and heroic entrance,” the girl sighed over a laugh, sliding off her barstool before walking around the counter. She met Makino’s shell-shocked expression with an apologetic smile. “Sorry about this. He was so excited to surprise you, after how Dadan reacted.”

“Dadan?”

Her voice sounded hoarse, like she’d momentarily forgotten how to use it, but the mention allowed her head to clear a bit, giving her reeling mind a firm foothold; the confirmation that she wasn’t imagining him. That Dadan had seen him, too.

But looking at Sabo, taller and broader and inexplicably _older_, she didn’t understand how it was possible. The dead didn’t come back; they were the only ones she didn’t have it in her heart to keep waiting for.

And she was fiercely practical, and quick to adjust to change, but all at once, it all became a little too overwhelming, too many things for her to accept and not enough time to wrap her head around them, and a wave of dizziness hit her, causing her to reach for the counter to steady herself. A cramp low in her belly had her sucking a breath past her teeth, as her hand flew to the spot that hurt, her eyes clenching shut.

“Koala!” Sabo snapped, openly distressed, and still holding the liquor crate, as though he wasn’t sure what to do with it.

“Put down the crate, you dork,” Koala said, before Makino felt a small hand pressed against her lower back, and another curled around her elbow, supporting her. She had a surprisingly strong grip. “Take a deep breath.”

“Okay,” Sabo breathed.

“Not _you. _Makino-nee.”

“Oh, right.”

She shook her head at him, and despite the whole situation, and the persisting cramp, Makino blurted a wet laugh, and watched as Sabo’s expression brightened, easing away some of his distress at her state. He was still holding the liquor crate uselessly, although he put it down when Koala helped her out from behind the counter and into the nearest chair.

With one hand rubbing soothing circles over her belly, “I’m fine,” Makino assured them, when Sabo looked ready to spring into action at the first sign of discomfort. “You caught me by surprise is all.” She fixed him with a look, but where she’d meant to say something teasingly reprimanding, her voice sounded a little too thick when she told him, “It’s not every day someone comes back from the dead.”

His grin was predictably sheepish, but there was genuine regret in it even as he chirped, “I’ll try not to make a habit of it.”

Huffing a laugh, Makino smoothed her hands over her belly where it curved under her apron. The baby was kicking, the movements comforting, allowing her to catch her breath.

She caught Sabo looking at it, his smile wide and curious, before his gaze shifted to her hand where it was splayed atop the bump. He’d noticed her wedding ring; the delicate band where it circled her finger.

“Dadan didn’t mention that you’d gotten married,” he said.

Makino hummed, smiling as she laced her fingers together over her stomach. She felt the ring, the metal warmed by her hand. “Maybe she forgot. She drank so much sake at my wedding they had to load her naked and singing into a wheelbarrow to get her home.”

His grin dropping from his face, Sabo looked mildly horrified by this, before his features pulled into a constipated grimace, as though provided with a vivid but entirely unasked-for mental image.

Makino smiled up at him where she sat. “Payback,” she said, demurely. “For not giving me a warning.”

He shook his head at her, his expression this time somewhere between begrudging awe and mild alarm. “_Payback_? You sound like a pirate, Ma-chan.”

Her demure smile persisted, deepening the lines at the corners of her eyes, and she saw Koala’s brows quirking, understanding shaping her grin even as Sabo’s expression remained perplexed, before Makino asked him, mildly,

“What, didn’t you hear?”

—

She closed the bar for the day, to allow them time to catch up, although she still kept her doors open for whoever wanted to stop by and say hello. A self-employed tavern owner’s prerogative. And maybe a little bit a pirate’s.

Dadan arrived a bit later, her whole family in tow. Makino noticed Sabo had a hard time meeting her eyes, although even his horror at the wheelbarrow-story fled at the revelation of an entirely different piece of news.

“You married _Red-Hair_?”

Makino met his surprise with an enduring smile, her hands resting over the baby bump where she sat, at the centre of the people who’d gathered in her bar. It felt a little more like it should, the silence turned away at the door, along with all the other patrons who were just looking for a drink. It wasn’t welcome in her establishment today. “You just missed him. He would have loved to meet you.”

“Should have been here for the wedding, Sabo!” one of the bandits called out, laughing. “Never seen this place so lively. Red-Hair lives up to his reputation.”

“He wasn’t even the most debauched of the lot,” Dadan said, with a deliberate look at Makino, who delicately ignored it. She barked a laugh. “Mah, can only speak for myself, and I can’t even remember getting home.”

Sabo choked on his drink, coughing. Koala patted his back sympathetically. “There, there.” She shot Dadan a grin. “Probably just went down the wrong pipe.”

Dadan made a gruff sound; she’d developed a fondness for the girl Sabo had brought home with him. And shaking her head at the young man in question, still coughing up his drink. “Still can’t get used to you bein’ old enough to drink.”

Clearing his throat, Sabo shook his head, waving his hand. “Oh, I’ve been drinking for yea—”

Koala elbowed him so hard he nearly toppled off his barstool, and murmured out of the corner of her mouth, “Watch what you say, or she’ll _kill _the Big Boss.” Then, “Or worse: Makino-nee will give him a stern talking-to.”

Retaking his seat, Sabo laughed. “Is it wrong that I’d pay to see that?” At the sight of Makino’s brows quirking, he grinned innocently. “What?”

She shook her head. And she wasn’t sure she even wanted to know, but her curiosity had always been one of her biggest vices, and so before she could further question the wisdom of asking, “So what is it you do now?” Her gaze shifted between the two of them, wearing identical and far too innocent smiles. “Are you pirates?”

Sabo’s grin widened, as he shared a look with Koala. “Not exactly.”

Makino pursed her mouth. “And you’re not marines.”

“Oh, most definitely _not_.”

“Do I have to keep guessing?”

At that, he shot her a grin. It made her think of Shanks. “As the formerly sweet-natured barmaid who used to run this place, I might have told you,” he said, his eyes twinkling. “But as the wife of one of the Four Emperors, I think I’ll keep my cards close. You understand.”

“Sabo-kun,” Makino chided gently, smiling where she rested her hands atop her belly. She tilted her head, her eyes curving with her most innocent smile. “We’re all friends here.”

He looked at Koala, then at Dadan, before posing the question to the room, “Did anyone else feel a shiver run up their back? No? Just me, then.” Then to Makino with a grin, he asked her, “Were you always this scary?”

She made a musing sound, smoothing her fingers over the bump, but the baby was quiet in the loose cradle of her arms. Content, and safe, surrounded by bandits and more dangerous people still. And Makino, although she’d never been very dangerous. She was, after all, just a barmaid.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, and saw his grin widening; delighted, as though he’d come back and found her exactly like he remembered her being, and yet at the same time a completely different person. Makino didn’t correct him on either assessment.

Both were true, after all.

—

They stayed with her a whole week. Sabo helped out around the bar, and did the chores that took her longer now, with her growing belly; did the heavy lifting, and allowed Makino to stay off her feet as much as possible.

He’d been that way as a boy, she remembered—attentive to the needs of others, and quick to step in, unafraid of getting his hands dirty, and of learning menial chores, a hunger in him that she hadn’t understood at first, having only learned where he’d come from much later. But she’d taught him the things he’d wanted to know, how to mend his own socks; how to get grass stains out of his trousers, and how to cook. His brothers hadn’t been similarly inclined, at least not at that age. And he’d love to sit and watch her work, and to ask her about it, learning her routines while he polished her glasses to shining.

“I think he’s grown way too attached to that apron,” Koala mused, observing her partner strutting between the tables of Makino’s bar, his shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows and his cravat loosened, and carrying a tray of drinks. The apron in question was far too small for him; a flimsy little thing of Makino’s with dainty embroideries along the edges.

The patrons gathered in her establishment didn’t even bat an eye, used to stranger sights, and Shanks, and only held out their glasses for Sabo to refill.

Makino made a humming sound, her smile small and privately intimate, softening the edges of the longing where it rested, always, just below her breastbone, and dropping her voice, remarked mildly, “I’ve watched the most powerful man on the sea prance around in nothing but that apron.”

Koala suffocated her startled laugh with the back of her hand, and when Sabo looked towards them curiously, managed to turn it into a fairly convincing wave.

They sat in silence for a while, connected by the sudden yet intimate confidence of women that doesn’t need much prompting to exist, the smell of jasmine rising from the steaming cups on the table between them. And a conversation of this nature usually called for brandy, but while she was pregnant, tea would have to suffice.

Koala made a musing sound then, sliding Makino a look. “_Nothing_ but the apron, huh?”

“Hmm.”

“Honeymoon fun?”

She cleared her throat, smiling. “Not only.”

“Oh _really_?” Another pause, and then, so quietly Sabo didn’t have a chance of overhearing, “Private kink?”

Makino sipped her tea primly, her eyes turned to the ceiling. She said nothing.

Another beat of silence, before Koala asked with a grin, “Did he look good in it?”

“You’ve seen his picture in the paper,” Makino said, pursing her mouth demurely. “What do you think?”

Grinning, Koala was quiet for another beat, before she turned to Makino with an imploring look. “_Please_ let me tell him. I want to watch him scramble to get out of it as fast as possible.”

Putting her cup down, Makino smoothed her hands over her belly, feeling the baby kicking. It was stronger now, the curve of her stomach more pronounced every week, and the firmer the little presence grew in her mind, the more she found herself reaching for an image to go with it, wondering whose nose it would get, and whose temperament. If it would be a clever little girl, to steal the sea from her father’s eyes, or a kind, gentle boy, who’d make her laugh like Shanks did.

Across the room, Sabo had stopped by a table, the empty tray propped on his hip now as he got into a heated discussion about the many merits of pale ale. Catching them watching him, he flashed them a grin. Another gentle boy, who’d come back to make her laugh.

“Let’s give him a few more minutes before we traumatise him further,” she told Koala, smiling where they sat together by the table, an unexpected friendship having taken root in her once-lonely garden, her best friend miles away still, but there was something to be said for the unique companionship found between women, even ones as different as they were.

“I don’t think he’s gotten over the story about the wheelbarrow yet.”

—

The week flew by, and more quickly than she’d wanted it to, but she was used to this; to being content with the time she was given, and to not ask for more than she had.

And anyway: the Revolutionary Army had duties beyond the personal desires of its individual members.

Makino hadn’t told them she’d long since figured out their affiliations, although suspected they already knew, from the looks Sabo kept giving her, which told her she wasn’t fooling anyone, playing the demure and innocent wife of a pirate, who pretended to know nothing of the machinations that governed the sea her husband sailed, their own organisation being no exception.

The pink sunset had swept the sky clear of clouds, and a brisk wind teased the hem of her skirt, nipping playfully at her cheeks, always as though inviting her to come along, to be carried off the docks if she let herself. But her heels were rooted firmly now as with every goodbye, her spine straight, the delicate line of her back hiding the steel in it.

They’d leave under the cover of night, on the unnamed ship that had pulled up to her quiet shores to take them away. There was no flag, and no jolly roger to identify their allegiance, but then Makino had come to expect nothing less of Dragon the Revolutionary, even here in this remote corner of East Blue.

A man was standing on deck, observing the village behind her. Tall and broad-shouldered, he wore his black hair pulled back from his high brow, revealing the tattoo covering one half of his face. Makino knew who he was.

His gaze shifted to her where she stood on the docks, and she saw his eyes fleeting down to her belly, rounding under the skirt of her dress, unmistakably pregnant. And she knew then, as his eyes lifted back to hers, a single, severe brow quirking, as though in quiet challenge, that he knew well who she was, too.

Then Dragon inclined his head to her, in what looked like a curious show of respect, before he turned towards the deckhouse, putting the village behind him.

The exchange had been entirely wordless, although glancing up at Sabo where he stood beside her, his brow furrowed a bit, Makino didn’t think he’d missed it.

Turning towards him, “Be careful,” Makino said. Koala had already gone aboard, but Sabo had lingered in his goodbyes.

His answering grin was cheerfully incriminating. “Accounting is a dangerous job.”

“Hmm, I thought you were in sales?”

“Did I say that? I meant to say that I was in publishing.”

“Well, be careful, either way.” She met his eyes, her own twinkling. “You never know how the critics might respond. To the things you publish, that is.”

Sabo chuckled, but when he met her eyes it was with a serious look, as he agreed, “Sound advice even for situations not related to publishing.”

His eyes dropped to her belly where she cradled it in her hands. There was genuine regret in his voice when he told her, “I’m sorry I can’t be there for the birth.”

Makino shook her head. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll be fine.” But even as she said it, she wondered if he could tell that her confidence was feigned; that it had been nearly five months already, and that Shanks still hadn’t come back. That she was beginning to wonder if he would make it back before the birth. That—and this was a fear she barely dared confess to herself—she was afraid he wouldn’t come back at all, and that she’d be a widow before she was a mother.

“Are you sure you don’t want to come with us?” Sabo asked her then, confirming her suspicions; that he could tell she was faking it. It wasn’t the first time he’d made the offer over the week they’d stayed with her. “Our headquarters are really nice, and you’d be protected—”

“Sabo,” Makino cut him off gently, smiling. His concern for her was endearing, and appreciated, but, “I’ll manage. I’ve always managed.” Then, only partly in jest, “And I don’t know how my husband would feel about it, coming back only to discover I’ve been spirited away by a well-meaning if slightly overbearing publishing company.”

It was meant to lighten the mood, although it didn’t quite succeed, as Sabo only held her gaze, no teasing in his voice now as he asked her, “Are you safe here, Makino?”

Her hands tightened over the bump; she hoped he couldn’t tell that they were trembling. And it wasn’t a new fear, the one she felt now; the one she didn’t feel on her own behalf so much as for the unborn child in her belly.

She was really showing now; there was no hiding it. And all it would take was a single rumour, and one willing ear to listen.

“I’m as safe as I can be,” she said. She did believe that, truly. “I have Garp, and Dadan is here, and her family.” She lifted her chin, and her confidence wasn’t feigned now when she told him, “And I am protected. _He’s_ made sure of that.”

The mention of Shanks didn’t ease his concern; rather the opposite. “But if anyone finds out that you’re—”

He stopped before he could finish, and looked around them. And even alone on the docks, out here in the open, he seemed reluctant to say Shanks’ name out loud; as though a treacherous wave would hear, and carry it out to sea.

He started when she touched his coat, smoothing her hands over the lapels, as though to straighten them out. “I am,” she said, her voice firmed with a gentle but unapologetic pride. She didn’t shy away from her choices; the man she’d chosen to marry least of all. “And I will also kindly remind you that I was self-sufficient long before I married him. You’re not seriously telling me you don’t think I can handle being on my own?”

Sabo’s expression softened, suddenly chagrined, and she smiled, showing him there was no real offence taken.

A gloved hand reached out then, pressed to the bump, before he frowned, and not finding what he was looking for, Makino moved his fingers a bit, until he felt it, his expression alighting with a smile at the movement under his palm.

“You’ll come visit when it’s born,” she told him, and saw him look up. “Luffy, too.”

He nodded. “I will.” Then, firmly, “And you’ll stay safe. Don’t do anything reckless.”

She hummed a laugh. “Oh, I’ll try to restrain myself.”

Sabo smiled at her. “I hope your husband knows he’s a damn lucky guy.”

Her smile softened. For a spell, the ache of missing him felt a little easier to bear. “He knows. But you’re welcome to tell him if you see him.” There was a suggestion there, and she wondered if he caught it.

Sabo’s grin told her he had, even before he told her, “You can bet on it.”

Then she said, prim, “And if anyone with ill intentions come looking, I’ll show them where the door is.”

That got her a rough laugh, although it didn’t fully succeed in wiping away the worry from his expression. “Give ‘em hell, yeah?”

She nodded, before she stepped forward, folding her arms around him. She was so small the top of her head didn’t even reach his shoulder, and she couldn’t wrap her arms fully around his back, but Sabo returned the embrace fiercely, although he was mindful of her belly between them. Makino had a mind to tell him not to grow so much before they saw each other again.

“If I see you in the paper,” she told him instead, gentle but firm, “let it be good news.”

She didn’t say his name, but it hung between them; the one boy who wouldn’t come back to her no matter how long she waited.

Sabo nodded, and then for good measure, she said, “That’s not the barmaid speaking, by the way.”

She heard his chuckle, lost against her hair. “No? The Empress, then?”

Swallowing thickly, Makino nodded. “Just so you know you have no choice.”

He squeezed her once, before he pulled back, and ducking his head with a grin, he kissed her cheek.

“Don’t worry, Ma-chan,” he told her, and Makino didn’t know if it was a promise or just a statement of fact when he said, with so much confidence she couldn’t help but believe him—

“I’m _really_ hard to kill.”

—

She closed the bar the day the paper arrived with the news; one of the many she’d been dreading, because waiting doesn’t always mean you’re waiting for something good.

_Two_ was the number now, of the ones who’d left her and who’d never return. Makino wondered how high the number would be when all was said and done; if she’d soon be a widow, too, waiting for a ghost ship, and for her captain and crew to come home, to bring her to the endless shores of the afterlife.

Her son was playing, thankfully unaware of her grief, and the tears she wasn’t able to hold back, spilling down her cheeks, over her hands, staining the paper and blotting the ink. Makino listened to him babbling, and that bright, beautiful laugh as he pushed the ball around, seated on the floor where she’d pulled up a chair. Content in his own company, the way she’d always been as a child, growing up with her mother, who’d taught her the importance of self-reliance.

But she’d grown crookedly, wilful and independent, and she was different now, a mother in her own right, a pirate’s wife, a pirate herself, and no longer content to be alone, and to readily accept her fate as it was decided for her. She _wanted_ things now, wanted to be happy, to be loved, to live without worrying, and to be given back the things she was due. Her husband; her crew; her boys.

Wiping her eyes, she turned the newspaper over, and rising from her seat, went to pour herself a drink; allowing herself that today, selfishly, _stubbornly_. Because even the most patient of gardeners know that nothing grows without a good dose of stubbornness, not peace or happiness, and hope was a weed she’d never been able to uproot from her heart, for all her practical upbringing.

The whiskey burned her throat, leaving her coughing, and putting the empty glass down on the counter, she drew a deep breath. Then, steeling her spine, she poured herself another. If she was in for a long wait, she’d need it.

The dead never came back once they left, but Makino hoped now that she’d be proven wrong, this time like the last one. Because death might be final, but she was stubborn, and she’d out-waited tougher challengers. Longing, and loneliness; doubt and fear. She’d invited them all in, had served them all without judgement, and without buckling under the weight of their demands; her constant patrons. But _death_—

_I’m _really_ hard to kill._

Death could kindly fuck right off.

**Author's Note:**

> That reckless idiot better turn up safe and sound and then go home and apologise for making his mothers worry.


End file.
